Clinic vandalism doesn't meet hate-crime test

The Flathead County Attorney’s Office says it will prosecute Zachary Klundt, 24, of Columbia Falls, for a business burglary, not a hate crime.

Klundt is accused of breaking into the All Families Healthcare clinic in Kalispell on March 3 and committing extensive vandalism — damaging art, furniture, medical instruments, medical supplies and file cabinets, breaking a sewer line, and damaging the boiler system and a water heater as well as plumbing.

Members of the community and clinic owner Susan Cahill had pushed for the crime to be recognized as an act of hate deliberately committed against Cahill and her clinic, which was Kalispell’s only abortion provider.

But no specific hate crime statute exists in Montana law, Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan said. State statutes instead cover the crime of malicious intimidation or harassment relating to civil or human rights.

“It’s an offense which occurs when somebody interferes with a person’s exercising of their civil or human rights, or if they are accosted because of race, creed or color,” Corrigan said. “Fortunately, in this part of the world, over the last 20 years since that law was enacted, we’ve only had one incident of that actually being prosecuted.”

Corrigan said that case involved an African-American woman who was accosted repeatedly by another woman because of her race.

“In the Klundt case — and I know people are going to disagree with this, people are going to jump to the conclusion, maybe correctly so, that he destroyed this clinic because it was a clinic where people could get abortions — I don’t think access to medical care is the type of exercise of civil or human rights that’s envisioned by the statute,” Corrigan said.

Based on his understanding of the malicious intimidation statute, the case will be treated as a business burglary, but that is actually a more serious crime, Corrigan said.

Charged with felony counts of burglary, criminal mischief, theft and attempted burglary, Klundt faces up to 60 years in prison and a $200,000 fine if convicted. A malicious intimidation conviction only carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

“The penalty for the burglary should be a pretty good deterrent to anybody else doing something of this nature,” Corrigan said. “This is, in my opinion, the better way to go.”

If a person is not convicted of malicious intimidation but it is determined that a crime was committed because of race, creed, religion, color, national origin or involvement in civil rights or human rights activities, a sentence can be enhanced by two to 10 years.

But because Corrigan has stated he does not believe those circumstances apply, a pursuit of such an enhancement is unlikely.

Cahill said she was disappointed that the hate-crime angle was not being pursued, but that she understood where Corrigan was coming from, particularly with regard to potential prison time.

“As far as I’m concerned, Zachary needs to stay in prison as long as possible, and Ed has said to us that he wanted to prosecute this to the fullest extent of the law,” Cahill said. “It is a hate crime, I have no doubt about it, but legally I want them to do the best they can, so I have to trust their judgment on that.”